A government school in Rajasthan’s Udaipur district, removed a woman cook on Monday after she allegedly threw away the midday meal touched by a girl student who belongs from a lower caste. In a video that surfaced on social media, the class 8 girl student of Government Girls Higher Primary School Utarda, Udaipur, belonging from the Meghwal community, talks about the incident of caste-based discrimination against her, reported The Indian Express.

This incident reportedly took place on July 2. The cook, identified as Kamla Vaishnav had allegedly misbehaved with the girl for touching the midday meal because she belonged to a lower caste. Not only that, she threw away the food because the girl had touched it.

Reportedly, the girl also said that following the incident, she broke down and complained to the school staff, but no action was taken against the cook. She later went to the school with her mother to take up the issue with the school in-charge, but her efforts went in vain.

As the video surfaced on social media, the locals expressed their resentment and disaccord and urged the school administration to take stringent action against the woman. Subsequently, on Monday, July 9, the administration conducted a meeting of the school management committee which decided to remove the cook, a contractual employee of the school.

“The cook tendered her apology for discriminating against the girl, but the locals were not pacified and wanted action against her. Therefore, a decision was taken to remove her,” the school principal, Sushil Arya said.

“The woman also belongs to the same village, but no case of discrimination by caste has happened so far. Therefore, the villagers were annoyed over the incident,” the principal said.

The Logical Indian Take

Caste-based discrimination is so deeply entrenched in the Indian society that even in the 21st century, humanity often loses out to caste. A child studying in class 8 had to undergo such blatant caste-based discrimination at her impressionable age. Even though the cook was later terminated, the effect of this ordeal will remain etched on the young mind for a very long time.